"It was not the kind of experience I had..."

What I liked

Well, arriving promptly for my 10am appointment & only requiring an x-ray & a few minutes with a fracture consultant, I am struggling to like anything about being stuck waiting around & on the receiving end of poor staff communication... to the extent that, after making a 2nd follow up appointment, it was 12.50pm by the time I could leave the building.

My partner took a day off work so that we could also attend a visit to our daughter's prospective school for a function we had been invited to. However, due to my being hideously delayed at Epsom hospital, all of their (my family) waiting around for me caused our two year old to become understandably restless & us all feeling a bit drained... I feel guilty about how our day has been smudged & simply irritated by the fact that this is down to the poor service dished out to me by Epsom hospital.

What could be improved

A sincere apology from someone in authority before I departed & a reasurrance that I would not feel mocked in future. I know delays often occur but being in that clinic for three hours is a bit of a joke, though I'm hardly laughing.

Further, sitting in a corridor with the indignity of everybody else brushing past is not pleasant. Another elderly patient commented that he found it degrading that pitching a few seats in a busy corridor is supposed to constitute a place for patients to wait. The combination of the practical arrangments plus the way the appointments diary is managed need reviewing.

Moreover, if a patient is being made to feel they should have brought their toothbrush for a simple out-patient check up then perhaps the offer of a referral to a private hospital could be made. Annual leave is important to my family & I am not happy that my partner may need to book at least 0.5 day's leave again when an hour that can be made up should be sufficient.

Just to mention that, due to the mad delay I enjoyed, our pockets required more emptying to feed the parking meter & because my family did not expect to need to bring a lunch they then were forced to fork out on food after waiting aound for so long.

Anything else?

* Review clinic management

* Investigate what was going on at the Derby Ward fracture department today, 07.04.2011